asmPolitics-413 [Kayleigh McEnany, Chicago, Derelict Mayor Lori Lightfoot]

 The war of words between the White House and Chicago City Hall continued as Mayor Lori Lightfoot in a Thursday tweet called President Donald Trump’s press secretary a “Karen” and told her to watch her mouth.

White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany set off the new round of vitriol with the Chicago Democrat at her news briefing earlier in the day. McEnany called Lightfoot “the derelict mayor of Chicago” and accused her of not doing enough to resolve the city’s gun violence.

When asked about Trump’s level of focus on the deadly coronavirus pandemic, McEnany said he is “focusing on a lot” and then invoked Chicago’s ongoing problems with violence.

“But there are other things the President has to focus on: namely, Democrat cities not controlling their streets; namely, the mayor of Chicago — people dying in her — in her — on the streets of her city every weekend. And the President sent her a letter saying, ‘You must secure your city,‘” according to a White House transcript.

Later in the briefing, McEnany returned to her criticism of Lightfoot.

“I’ve listed for you the names of these kids who have died across this country. It is unacceptable, and under this President, he’ll take action,” McEnany said in response to a question about Trump’s recent statement that more white people are killed by police than Black people. “And the derelict mayor of Chicago should step up and ask for federal help because she’s doing a very poor job at securing her streets.”

Lightfoot replied via tweet: “Hey, Karen. Watch your mouth.”

Gary Coby, the Trump campaign’s digital director, also weighed in by calling Lightfoot “a total failure at stopping this violence.”

Text TRUMP to 88022

@GaryCoby

Black people are being murdered at a record rate in Chicago. The violence and death is out of control... 64 shot & 11 killed just last weekend. 373 have been killed just this year, a 35% increase. Here is the Mayor, who is a total failure at stopping this violence.

Mayor Lori Lightfoot

@chicagosmayor

Hey, Karen. Watch your mouth.

7:09 PM · Jul 16, 2020

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1.2K people are Tweeting about this

The Republican president and his administration have focused attention on Chicago and other Democrat-led cities in recent weeks and on Wednesday vaguely referenced an upcoming announcement on how his administration intends to deal with crime in those places. In a briefing with reporters about his ongoing efforts to deal with the MS-13 gang, Trump said he would have more to say next week “with the attorney general, the FBI and others concerning our cities, because the left-wing group of people that are running our cities are not doing the job that they’re supposed to be doing, and it’s not a very tough job to do if they knew what they were doing.”

When a reporter asked at the end of the Wednesday event whether he planned to follow through on a recent statement that the federal government might take over cities such as Chicago to deal with crime, Trump didn’t answer directly. But he cited recent issues with protesters in Seattle, Minneapolis and Portland, Oregon, before pointing to violence in Chicago.

Earlier in the week, Trump likened Chicago to Afghanistan, and Lightfoot sounded a familiar response during a Tuesday appearance on MSNBC, accusing the president of political posturing. Lightfoot said Trump won’t take steps needed to deal with the proliferation of illegal guns that would really help drive down Chicago violence.

“If you go back over many years, President Trump has said a lot of disparaging things about the city of Chicago. He likes to use us as a political punching bag,” Lightfoot said. “But if the president was really committed to helping us deal with our violence, he would do some easy things. What he would push for is universal background checks, he would push for an assault weapons ban, he would push to make sure that people who are banned from getting on airplanes can’t get guns.”

Last week, McEnany ended her Thursday briefing with a call for “law and order” and police support while invoking the names and faces of six young children killed by Chicago gun violence. The faces of Natalia Wallace, 7, Mekhi James, 3, Vernado Jones Jr., 14, Sincere Gaston, 20 months, Lena Marie Nunez, 10, and Amaria Jones, 13, were cast on the screen as McEnany spoke about keeping the children “close to our hearts.” She misstated Mekhi’s age as 10.

“President (Donald) Trump has taken action calling strongly for law and order and peace in our streets, and he has set the tone at the top for mayors and governors,” McEnany said before reading out the names of eight young gun violence victims, six of whom died in Chicago this summer.